When the New York Times Says Mean Things About Whole Life Insurance…

This week the New York times ran a piece on their web site that took a little knock at Whole Life Insurance. So, when a writer at the NY Times takes a shot at whole life insurance like so many financial wannabes have in the past, what do you suppose its readers do in response? The answer might shock you… If you're like me, you'd expect all the termites to crawl out from beneath their rocks and rejoice in the whole life bashing party. That's what we see quite prevalently on some of the other bottom feeding financial media outlets. But the NY Times might pose a bit surprising.

Remember, it is the Newspaper of the intelligentsia.

Instead of term shrills beating up whole life insurance, instead we find in the comment section a trend of people who made comments like the following:

“I guess I'm one of those fools who bought a series of whole life insurance policies between 20 and 30 years ago and paid annual premiums. The best financial decision? Maybe not. Could I have made a better investment? Perhaps, if I was disciplined and was willing to take on more risk and if I could invest with 20-20 hindsight. But after receiving and paying those bills for premiums, I have built up a cash value of over $500,000. Unfortunately, I suspect that foolish decision puts me in the 1%.”“i got talked into a whole life policy with Northwestern Mutual, and it's now got $300+k of cash value, with tax-free dividends at a yield rate exceeding many of my other investments. So the old “buy-term-and-invest-the-rest” may be a little stale at the edges.”

Oddly, no one showed up to join in the author's proclamation that whole life insurance is sold by insurance agents (not bought by consumers) who push these products on their friends and family. At least not by the time we saw it and posted the link here, I'm sure someone will come along eventually.

I bring this up because it shows that while some people take cheap shots at the idea of owning whole life insurance, there is plenty of good reason, and plenty of good examples, of people who have benefited quite well from it.

Brandon launched the Insurance Pro Blog in July of 2011 as a project to de-mystify the life insurance industry. Brandon was born in Northern New England, and he currently calls VT home. He attended Syracuse University and graduated with a triple major in Economics, Public Administration, and Political Science.